


Howl

by raleighpuppy



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Nux Lives, okay it's more of a weredingo really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-05 14:38:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 20,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4183638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raleighpuppy/pseuds/raleighpuppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a dingo hanging around The Citadel at night and, when Furiosa befriends the dingo, she notices a few odd coincidences involving the dingo, which she names Max, and another Max quite dear to her.<br/>And then a new threat appears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this idea came to me when I was eating Nilla Waifers and something in the very back of my mind whispered "Mad Max: Fury Road post-canon Max/Furiosa but it's werewolves," and I latched onto it.
> 
> Also, I'm really bad at titling.

For the fourth night in a row, an awful howling fills the still, desert night and Furiosa sits up in bed, Max mysteriously missing, and listens to it in dead silence. It's a silly thought, a childish one, but she hopes the creature-- she assumes it's some sort of dog; a dingo maybe?-- isn't hurt. But something about it makes her think of Max. Perhaps he mentioned something about having a dog to her once? He seems like he'd like dogs. And something about the fact it sounds like only one animal makes her think of him too.

But he isn't there for the fourth night in a row.

By the time she wakes, she can feel warmth next to her, the kind of warmth only few things can create, one of those things being another human being, and she opens her eyes to see Max curled up into her side. (He's a cuddler.) She lightly smiles at him. He appears younger in his sleep, less tortured, and smaller too. But duty calls and she has to quietly crawl out of bed and prepare for the day without waking him.

By the time Max stumbles into the mess hall, still half asleep, Furiosa is almost done with her breakfast, and listening to Nux and Capable explain the successes of the clean-up effort led by the War Boys, now just the Boys, and their efforts at medical treatments for the sick, including Nux whose windpipe is still under assault from Larry and Barry, which occasionally renders him unable to work. With a good-morning grunt, which is slightly more cheerful than his usual greeting grunt, he settles down next to Furiosa and across from Nux with his porridge.

"Did any of you hear the baying last night?" Capable asks. "That dog, or whatever it is, was at it again."

"I heard it," Furiosa answers. "If it continues for another night, I'll lead a patrol to search for its source."

Max blinks a few times, carefully considering his words for a few minutes, and making his usual odd faces, often mouthing his words before speaking, and grunts that mean he's really really thinking about this. "Dog!" he shouts a bit too loud, attracting the attention of nearly the entirely mess hall. "There's a dog? Did you-- did you see it?"

"Dog? It is nice? Can you eat it? What's a dog?" Nux squints, thinking about this "dog" and why one could possibly excite someone like Max so much. _It must be important_ , he decides, _Dog must be very important if Blood Bag thinks so highly of it_.

Max looks like someone has personally insulted him and visibly struggles to find the words he needs to speak. "No!" he ends up yelling, and Furiosa buries her face in her hands because now the entire mess hall is staring at him. "Dogs aren't food; they're friends." He shakes his head and she swears there are tears in his eyes. "Dogs are such-- such great-- I love dogs."

"Max?" Capable softly asks. "Are you feeling alright? Do you need to go back to bed?"

She masks her fear, but Nux shows his very plainly on his face, the absence of face paint only serving to make his facial expression even more apparent. He nervously pulls of Capable's sleeve a few times, and then whispers to her, while Max looks to Furiosa with his head tilted a bit to the side.

"Well." Furiosa stands. "I'll be going."

Stumbling to his feet, Max quickly follows without any sort of goodbye, not even a grunt.

"What was that?" she asks once they're further down the hall and on their way towards The Dag's gardens. "You yelled in the mess hall and--"

"I like dogs," he interrupts. He's smiling and it warms her heart a little because it's such a light, content grin. "If there's a dog-- a dog, I...." He trails off, staring off, and she's lost him.

* * *

The howling continues that night, the fifth night in a row, and Max is gone, also for the fifth night in a row.

Furiosa mounts her motorcycle and checks that her gun's loaded before riding off into the night in search of the lone-- at least she hopes it's only one; a pack might mean trouble-- dog in the desert. The cold night air whips around her and soothes her nerves. For as damaging as silence can be, that night it calms her. The dog is noticeable from a distance among the smooth sand dunes and it's not much of a dog than it is a rather large dingo, the largest she's ever seen.

Its gaze pierces her; she feels its eyes boring into her even from a distance, but it doesn't move. Glued to the spot by the intensity of the dingo's gaze, she doesn't move either. Time passes, but she doesn't know how much; it feels like she spends an eternity being speared by the dingo's eyes, but it might have only been minutes or even seconds.

Suddenly, the spell is broken by a long, sorrowful howl, almost like a song, like the dingo is lamenting some sort of loss to the night sky and to Furiosa. And then the dingo runs away, its tail between its legs, its head held low, and its limp very apparent.

When she wakes, Max is curled up next to her, much more sandy than he ought to be, and she sighs because she still hasn't the slightest idea where he goes at night. It's not like there's really anywhere he can _go_ in such a short amount of time, but he's left for the past five nights now. As she ponders her situation with the dingo, the dingo's motives, and Max's disappearances, she scratches his head and behind his ears, something he loves, something that makes him putty in her hands, and he pleasantly sighs.

* * *

The third night of sneaking out to find the dingo, the eighth night of howling, the eighth night of Max disappearing at night, the dingo sits barely an arm's reach away from her. Slowly and cautiously, it moves closer, its eyes flicking from place to place, seemingly unable to focus on one object for too long. With its wild eyes, bad leg, fur that sticks up at an odd angle on the back of its head, and overall caution, it reminds her of a certain Fool and, if he were there, she would certainly bag on him for it, ask him if he happens to be related to any dingos; maybe you're brothers?

"Max," she says out loud to the dingo, who tilts his head to the side in a very Max-like manner. Hell, the dingo even squints and shakes like he does. "I'll name you Max after a good friend of mine."

Dingo Max's tongue lolls out of its mouth and it wags its tail, seemingly happy with its new name.

She runs her hand over the dingo's head, smiling as it wags its tail faster and it rolls onto its back. It makes a sound, almost a grunt, a rather familiar grunt, in the back of its throat and carefully watches her hands, but makes no effort to move or fight or run. Her hands find their way to dingo Max's stomach, particularly to a spot on his side that makes it kick its good hind leg and blissfully close its eyes: the picture of happiness.

And when she didn't think the dingo could be any happier, she scratches its head and then behind its ears, and it sighs. She pauses, stares at the dingo, seemingly unaware of how familiar that noise is to her, how well she knows that particular sigh because it's  _Max's_. 

She leaves before the dingo does because she just can't take this, not so damn late.

* * *

 

"You're coming with me tonight," she says to Max the person on morning after her eleventh night in a row with Max the dingo.

He looks up from his food and tilts his head to the side. "Hm?"

"To see the dog," she explains. "I've befriended it."

"Really?" He lights up and it's possibly the happiest she's ever seen him aside from the first time she suggested there might be a dog. "Really?"

She smiles and nods.

It's an unusually cold night and the two of them sit close in the sand in their coats. He's shaking next to her, even more than usual, and she hopes it means he's excited because he certainly looks excited as he scans the sand dunes; it looks childlike, almost innocent if Max could ever be described as such. His grunts have meanings, his various squints and head tilts do too, but she hasn't decoded his shakes; she assumes they must mean something too. Hoping to calm his shaking a little-- it's starting to worry her a little how he's moving so much-- she reaches over and scratches his head, and there's _that_ sigh again, the one he shares with Max the dingo, who hasn't shown up yet.

He leans into her touch and she stops scratching. There's a rustling sound next to her, the sound of  very quietly movement, and then his chapped lips are being pressed against hers.

She wakes up in the sand still, more tired than one ought to be after sleeping, but then again, she didn't sleep much the night before. Max the dingo didn't show, much to Max the person's disappointment, but Max the person, her favorite Max, was enough, more than enough, for one night. Slowly, she sits up and surveys their surroundings, not speaking a word until Max stirs next to her.

"Fuck," he breathes. "We're gonna look so suspicious going back together like this."

"Oh, glory."

His hair is messy, messier than just sleep-mussed, messier than his normal messy because, let's face it, he doesn't have the neatest hair even when it's freshly cut, and the Sisters will definitely know what happened, especially if they return together. He'd joked about talking a "walk of shame" from her room to his one morning before they shared a room, but this is on an entirely different scale; the entire Citadel could possibly know. And not that she's ashamed of Max, of herself for being in a relationship, but she doesn't want that. Mainly for Max's sake since he shies away from the spotlight. She can handle it; him, not so much.

Luckily, it's early enough that the only coherently awake person they bump into is Dowel, an excitable and young former War Boy who volunteered to take the early shift, who smiles, which seems to exaggerate a deep scar across his cheek, and waves at them from his station, but seems to think nothing weird of their entry, of if he does, he makes no indication of it.

"Thank god," Furiosa mumbles, thankful it's just a Boy.

He hums in his agreement.

However, breakfast is a different story as Capable and Toast corner them as soon as they sit down, Capable sitting on Furiosa's other side and Toast sitting next to Max. Nux, innocent and friendly as ever-- well, for a former War Boy and in the ways of women, at least-- sits across from Capable, while Cheedo and The Dag sit next to him. Max grunts, searching for a way out. Furiosa, having accepted her fate, sullenly picks at her breakfast.

"So," Capable begins. "We noticed you guys weren't in your room last night. Where were you?"

"Dog." And then Max grunts by way of an answer before staring to eat, and the Sisters (plus Nux) turn to Furiosa to explain.

"We were looking for the dog we've been hearing at night," she explains. "I've befriended it and it's a nice, but very large, lone dingo. He wanted to see it since he likes dogs, but it didn't come last night. We fell asleep in the sand."

Cheedo snorts. "Sure, he got his hair that messy just sleeping."

"I swear we only slept," Furiosa replies. "Nothing more."

"We didn't see the dog," Max offers, not really contributing much to the conversation, but talking nonetheless, before dropping his knife and trying to catch it with shaky hands, resulting in a cut across the back of his right hand.

* * *

 

The next time Max the dingo very carefully approaches Furiosa much like Max the person once did when Max the person isn't present, she notices something peculiar: it has a cut across the top of its right paw.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The dingo comes at night, howling its sad song to the sand dunes, to the moon, to all that will listen, but never when Max the person is present, eagerly waiting to see what he keeps calling a dog even though he's been told approximately one hundred times by all the Sisters and Nux that it is, in fact, a dingo, not a dog.

"Don't think the dog likes me," Max drowsily grumbles into her shoulder as he and Furiosa sit in the sand, waiting for the dingo. And he sounds disappointed, legitimately disappointed and sad and maybe a little upset this dog doesn't want to see him. "Hm."

Furiosa sighs, and then runs a hand through his hair, taking note of the fact he needs a haircut. "I'm sure it likes you fine. It's probably just shy."

He grunts, and then moves so he's lying down with his head in her lap. He traces pictures in the sand with his finger and she watches him draw. There's an abstract concept of a motorcycle, then something she thinks is a dog dog, then something that somewhat resembles The Citadel, and she has no idea what the last picture is supposed to be, but it's somewhat rectangular in shape.

"Those are, um, good drawings," she comments, still unsure of what the last one is.

"No, they're not," he grumbles. "They're shit. Can't even tell the last one is my V8 Interceptor."

Oh. So _that's_ what it is. She guesses she can see it. It's rectangular in shape, somewhat like a car might be? And there are four circles that might be wheels? Beyond that, it's resemblance to a car or anything she's ever seen disappears.

"I could tell," she lies.

He snorts. "You're a shitty liar."

"Am not."

"Are to."

Before she can speak again, he's out cold and snoring, and she smiles before moving his head off her lap so she can lay down too.

* * *

 

The next time Furiosa and the dingo cross paths, it's bleeding heavily from three scratches on its left side and panting. It's been three nights since she's seen it last since she's been accompanied by Max the person each of those three nights and, for whatever reason, it won't approach him. Hell, there's no sign of it, not even howling, on nights when he comes too.

But its eyes are wild, darting from place to place, and it's snarling, baring its teeth and glaring, and she can't help but feeling that she was appropriate, perhaps much too appropriate, in her naming of the dingo.

Carefully, slowly, she reaches out to it, places a hand on its head. It narrows its eyes and stiffens, noticeably scared, but makes no sign of running or extra aggression that may lead to an attack.

"Oh no, Max."

She moves to pick the dingo up, surprised by its weight, but she still manages to carry it back to The Citadel with only a few stops to readjust her grip. The lookout-- this time it's Nux-- watches with wide, surprised eyes and, if anything the lack of light beyond the moon makes is eyes appear even more unnaturally blue, before bounding over to help her carry the dingo up the stairs and towards The Vault.

"What happened?" he asks.

"I found him like this," she explains. "He walked up to me bleeding."

The former War Boy quickly nods. "Let's not show Max. He likes Dog--" The way he says it makes it sound so proper, like it's a name. "--and I don't think he'd like hurt Dog."

"Where is Max?"

At the sound of his name, Max the dingo wags his tail and lifts his head, watching them from where he's been placed on the ground.

Nux shrugs. "He's been leaving at night. I don't know where."

"So he's not here right now?"

"I saw him leave."

She sighs before sitting down next to the dingo, who continues to wag its tail, happy with the attention its receiving, even with the scrapes on its side. Nux sits on her other side, echoing her sigh before reaching over to pet the dingo with a wide grin, but he stops just before touching it.

She watches the dingo watch Nux's hand. "What's wrong?"

"I've never pet a dog before." He sounds ashamed, almost scared. "What if I hurt Dog?"

"If you pet him lightly and scratch behind his ears, you won't hurt him. He'll like it."

Nux carefully reaches over and places his hand on top the dingo's head. He rests his hand there for a few seconds, while Max the dingo wags his tail, before beginning to scratch, and then Max the dingo is putty in his hands, rolling over to show his belly and wriggling around despite the bleeding scratches in his side.

"When Capable wakes, I need you to bring her here so she can help with his scratches, alright?" Furiosa asks, phrasing her request as a question because she hates ordering around the former War Boys; she wants them to have some sort of choice.

Nux nods. "I'll do that." He looks down at the dingo and smiles. _He's so young_ , she realizes, _He's hardly lived._ "Does he have a name?"

"Hm?"

"Did you name Dog?"

"His name is Max."

Nux laughs. "Max."

* * *

 

She wakes to something or someone falling on top of her, and Max the person finds himself lying prone on his back, while Furiosa stands over him with her heel pressed against his throat and a knife in her hand. He squirms under her, fearing for his life-- holy shit, that's a really big knife and he doesn't know where she hid it, but he's not too surprised by the fact she apparently hides weapons in their bedroom, and the sensation of his throat being crushed feels like an awful lot like almost dying, a feeling he knows well-- trying to escape, but the pain radiating from his side makes it hard to move too much. At the sight of him bloodied and squirming, she steps to the side, releasing him, but she's still high-strung, nervous, worried.

"What the hell was that?" she hisses a bit too harshly, but, hell, she's mad because he should know better than to do that.

"I-- I didn't-- I found something in the desert," he explains. He's unfocused, shaking, glancing around the room as if searching for a potential threat. "Might threaten The Citadel." 

"Max." She kneels next to him. "Let Capable look at your side first."

He shakes his head. "No, no, I have to tell you first."

"Alright. Tell me quickly."

He looks around the room once more before speaking. "There's an army. It's coming. Don't know if it's intentionally heading to The Citadel, but it's big and armed. Saw it take out a mountain village, a peaceful one, just goat-herders. Don't know who they are or why."

"Did they hurt you?"

"No. Did that myself." He grins; it's feral and she's worried. "Jumped off my lookout rock when they came near. Didn't want to be seen. It worked."

"Are you sure about this?"

He nods. "We need to get them first."

* * *

 

Capable and Nux stand together in The Vault, staring at the empty floor where the dingo used to lay. There's blood on the floor, blood wiped on the floor and the walls, but there's no dingo. The door behind them creaks open, and the duo turns around to see Max with a bloody side, Furiosa, and The Dag with handfuls of herbs that must be for healing the apparently nonexistent dingo. Nux's gaze fixes on Max and he tilts his head to the side, focusing on his bloody side.

"You've got the same bloody side as Max the dingo had," he points out.

"Max?" Max echoes.

Furiosa sighs. "I named the dingo Max."

"Well, where is it?" The Dag asks. "I picked all this for it, but it's not here."

"That's what we were wondering too," Capable says. "Me and Nux came down here to check it out too, but it's gone."

Nux pulls on Capable's sleeve and points to Max. "Person Max is hurt too."

The Fool blinks before looking down at his bloody left side, the same side the dingo was hurt on, and when he lifts his shirt so Capable and The Dag can patch him up, there are three scratches. Usually, when he's shirtless, her gaze can't help but gravitating towards the tattoos on his back, particularly _ISOLATE PSYCHOTIC. Keep muzzled..._ , but now it rests on those three familiar scratches.

These are too many coincidences to be nothing.

The Dag and Capable tend to his wounds, Capable being much more gentle than the other woman. The Dag isn't well-known for her gentleness, but she's effective. Capable is much more motherly, more nurturing.

"Fuck, that stings!" he hisses.

"It's supposed to sting," The Dag mumbles as she rubs more of the ground-up herbs into the wound.

"Sorry, sorry," Capable murmurs. "I'm sorry, but it means it's working."

Nux watches, very clearly interested in the process of tending to wounds with herbs. The Organic Mechanic wouldn't do anything for scratches like that; they'd probably be told to suck it up and be sent on their way to catch other infections and amass other wounds. Really, all the Organic Mechanic would do is clean up the blood and haphazardly stitch the wound shut if need be. The Organic Mechanic is a shoddy stitcher at best. At worst, a mouth accidentally gets stitched shut.

"Where did-- Dog? Where did it go?" Max asks.

"I don't know where he went," Furiosa answers. "But he was hurt. Three scratches on his left side and a healing scar on his right paw."

Max hides his right hand with a healing scar behind his back and grimaces. "Hope he's okay."

* * *

 

"You're ridiculous," she half-scolds as she too climbs onto a motorcycle. "And I can't believe you're doing this."

He smirks at her from where he sits on his motorcycle, a bit too smug for her liking. "You say as you believe and follow me."

She revs the motor. "Be quiet!" she shouts over the noise. "You're not allowed to be snarky!"

He laughs as they race off into the desert to investigate the army he'd reported about earlier, while Nux waves goodbye from his post as the night watch, a job he enjoys very much. The former War Boy has a natural instinct to please, much like all the other former War Boys, so they quickly offer to shoulder any open job, even the more unpleasant ones. Keeping them busy keeps fights to a minimum and, not that Nux would necessarily fight anyone, it's best to keep him busy. The night watch allows him to sit outside and watch the stars because, honestly, nothing happens at night.

The duo zips across the sand with Max in front, directing them towards where he'd last seen the supposed war convoy. It's hard to stay quiet when flying across the sand dunes, even on a covert mission, as adrenaline levels rise to exhilarating levels and Furiosa can understand the drive to stay on the road for years and years and years, she can understand running, why Max leaves. (She can only hope he decides to stay.) But there's something even more exhilarating about riding with someone, sharing the rush.

Before long, The Citadel is beyond their eyesight, especially in the dark.

And then there's the rumbling of many large vehicles plowing their way through the desert sands and Max points off to the side, eyes wide.

The convoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'll try to update and finish this fic as soon as possible because I want it done before I move since I don't want to leave you guys hanging for too long.
> 
> Also, I may see this becoming part of a series....


	3. Chapter 3

Furiosa and Max hide in the shadows of a large rock overhang, quietly watching the convoy pass with wide eyes on both their parts, and twitching and mumbling on Max's, and she wants him to stand _still_ for five seconds, five seconds please, because she swears she can feel him moving. She'd hold him still if she was entirely sure he wouldn't feel threatened by it. Really, before then, she hadn't noticed how much he moves; blinking, squinting, shaking, tilting his head, nodding, moving his hands, scanning the horizon.

"Fucking hell," he breathes, squinting into the darkness and shaking.

"Not that I doubted you, but--" She swallows. "--I wasn't expecting a war convoy like this."

He quickly nods, understanding.

"What else do you know?"

She watches him watch the convoy. Really, he doesn't _watch_ anything for too long; he looks around so he has a clear picture, his gaze never resting on anything too long. He's not too good at focusing and he either stares intently for too long or never directly looks. He messes up his face, half-squinting half-somewhat baring his teeth, and then grunts.

"Nothing?" She sighs.

"I saw them take out goat-herders. That's it."

"But why?"

He shrugs. "Power?"

"Taking out peaceful goat-herders won't make you feel powerful."

He shrugs again, offering no more to the conversation.

She grabs and readies her gun, pointing the muzzle in the direction of the convoy, aiming for the middle. Slowly, her finger makes its way towards the trigger. Max's movements are more jerky, less smooth, less methodical, and slightly less effective. But it's enough. He's a good shot still. Neither one presses down on the trigger; not yet.

"Their guns. How good are they?"

He squints before pointing towards the front of the convoy. "Good. A shot in our direction, if it hits, could take us and the rocks out. Easily."

The spray of fire rings out and her heart leaps. _Fuck fuck fuck fuck_. She tightly closes her eyes and when she opens them again, they're not dead. Instead, they're safe behind the rocks and Max returns fire. He meets her eyes and mouths "handhelds," and she then understands why they're not dead. Handhelds she can deal with no problem, she thinks she she returns fire.

It's exhilarating, not the same kind of exhilarating as racing across the dunes side-by-side, but it wakes her up, casts of any drowsiness or boredom or sluggishness that had previously existed and replaces it with awareness, with the overwhelming push and pull of being _alive_ and aware and next to another human being whose heart works to pump their blood. And she can hear her own heart pumping, hears a roar, the kind of roar that sounds inhuman, from next to her.

His shoulder explodes red, but he's laughing. He's laughing and it's the kind of laugh you'd expect from a madman, so exactly the kind of laugh Furiosa expects from Max; it's manic and quick and almost sounds like sobbing or choking if she pays particular attention to it.

Furiosa moves more towards the convoy, expecting Max to hold his own perfectly fine-- more than perfectly fine-- by the bikes. That is, until she hears another roar from behind her, this one different, more broken, full of pain, and she whips around, her focus lost.

"Max!"

He's lying on the ground, holding his left arm, and screaming. The screaming doesn't come as a surprise-- he's been rather loud for the entirety of the firefight, shouting, screaming, barking commands-- but the _roar_ before it was inhuman, even un-Max-like despite his capacity for making sounds Furiosa wasn't sure humans were capable of making. And she doesn't know if he's in pain or hallucinating or if she's entirely lost him.

She turns to fire back at the convoy, hoping to kill.

And then there's another noise, one too small and quiet and pitiful, and she turns around because that can't be Max, it can't be. For all the noises he makes, and she's heard a lot of them, ones the others haven't heard and hopefully never will, Max doesn't whimper, at least not like _that_.

"Max?"

She kneels next to him. Thankfully, they're enough behind the rock ledge they should be safe from all possible handhelds. The tanks? Not so much.

He's covered his face with his trembling hands and he's curled up on himself. The image of him writhing in the sand calls to mind the time, the only time, she saw a War Boy -- _Pup_ , she corrects herself, _He was only a Pup_ \-- die of anything other than battle; she tends to avoid their barracks due to the stench of illness and decay. The Pup had curled up on himself as tightly as he could without causing himself any unnecessary pain and shook and shook until he lacked the strength to even shiver, and then he drew one last weak breath before closing his eyes for the last time.

"Max!"

He whines and she's heard that sound, she knows that sound, she heard it when Max the dingo came in with the three scratches on his side, three scratches the Max before her has too.

But it doesn't make any sense.

She turns around for just a few seconds to peek out from behind the rock and fire at the back of the convoy, but when she turns her attention back to Max, he's gone.

And there's the dingo lying in the sand with its head resting on its front paws and a bloody left arm. It's been shot. It's watching her with familiar eyes, eyes she's gazed into many many times, with an expectant look like it knows she knows what to do. And then it growls, not threateningly-- it doesn't appear angry or scared or threatened-- but she knows that growl too.

She stills, her hand still on her gun, breathing heavily. She knows the stories, they've all heard the stories, about the creatures that lurk out in the deserts that they should be wary of, that they should kill upon contact. Her hand finds its way from the gun onto the forehead of the dingo-- _Weredingo_ , she reminds herself, _He's a fucking weredingo_ \-- who slowly wags his tail.

"Max?" she quietly asks. "Is it you?"

The dingo-- Max-- lunges forward, almost threateningly and she almost hits him away, but then he licks her face, wagging his tail, and she laughs before hugging him, minding his hurt side.

"I can't fucking believe it," she breathes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

In lieu of a response, he whines and nods his head in the direction of the Citadel, reminding her of the war convoy and its path of destruction. With a sigh, she steadies her bike and readjusts her grip on her gun. Wordlessly, the two set off, Furiosa riding, and Max running, still rather fast, though not quite as fast as the bike, despite his bad hind leg and shot front leg. She expects he'll be plenty sore later.

The ride back feels quicker-- it always does-- but as soon as the Citadel comes into view, Max stops, panting heavily before lying down and whining. She turns around, and then stops the bike next to him.

"Your leg?" she asks.

And she's surprised to get an answer; she's not sure why she assumed he wouldn't be able to speak like this, but he looks up at her and grumbles, "My knee."

She knows the knee; it's his right knee. She doesn't know what happened to it, but she knows the muscles around it often ache and the joint stiffens up.

"Also, there's--" He sounds sheepish, shy. "--I, um, I-- I have no clothes."

"But last time--" she begins.

"I had to sneak through the halls naked," he interrupts.

"Oh, glory." She sighs, looking down at him. "Why don't you come in like this, and then you can, um, shift back in our room?"

"Won't the others wonder how I got back, then?"

"We can, um-- You're quiet." She shifts on her bike so she's more comfortable. "Tonight's night watch is Nux. What if we--"

"Oh, no." He flattens his ears back against his head and whines. "If he learns, Nux'll tell."

"Max."

He sighs and she tries not to smile because it's kind of cute, really. "It's not that I don't trust Nux, it's just-- it's just that he's excitable. He'll tell Capable, Slit, The Dag, someone."

"You underestimate him and how much he looks up to you."

She rides off without giving him time to respond, so he does the only thing he can think of to do and runs after her, ignoring the pain from his two hurt legs. It's a quick ride and a quick run, only fifteen minutes until they reach the gate the night watch, who does happen to be Nux, must open for them. Nux watches with narrowed eyes from his post, and Furiosa can pinpoint the exact moment he realizes who it is by the grin that lights up his face.

"Imperator!" the former War Boy calls, waving before he opens the gate for them. "You found the Max dog!"

Once inside, Furiosa and Max sit next to Nux, one on each side of him, and Nux reaches over to pet Max, cooing "You're so shiny and chrome! Look at you!" and rubbing the dingo's head and scratching. Max tries to maintain his composure, he really does, because he has a cool exterior he can't betray, but within minutes, he's wagging his tail and lying on his back and he's putty in Nux's hands.

"The dingo," Furiosa explains, "alerted me to possible trouble involving a war convoy headed in our direction."

"A convoy?" Nux echoes, bright blue eyes wide. "From where?"

"I don't know." She sighs. "But they've got big, powerful canons."

"Are they coming this way?"

Suddenly, he's full of manic energy, shifting left and right, breathing heavily, trembling, but it's interrupted by coughing egged on by Larry and Barry, the tumors who continue their inevitable closure of Nux's windpipe despite his new-found purpose. As soon as the coughing ceases, he's on edge again. Tired, but excited. It pains her that he's excited about a potential battle, but it's the only sort of hope he's had for so long: dying in battle for some sort of greater leader, a greater good. It's hard to give that up so suddenly.

As he trembles, Max rests his head on Nux's knee and whines, either for attention or to communicate something without giving himself away. Either way, it works to calm the War Boy, as he returns his attentions to the dingo and away from the potential upcoming war.

"Yes," she answers. "I don't know their intentions, if they're coming for the Citadel, but their course is taking them in our direction."

"How did the Max dog tell you all that?" he asks. "Smart dog. Real shiny and chrome."

She bites her lip, looks down at Max with his head in Nux's lap, leg bleeding, other leg sore, but his eyes contently closed and tongue lolling as he receives attention and praises and head scratches and forehead kisses, considering her options carefully before speaking next.

"You've heard of weredingos, I assume?" she asks and Nux looks at her, tilts his head to the side.

"Weredingos?" he echoes. "What's that?"

"Sometimes," she explains, "people can turn into animals and back again. There's stories about them roaming the Wastelands, especially at night. In some stories, the moon changes them, but in others they can chose when to change. I've always heard-- always heard they weren't to be trusted, but--"

"Why can't you trust one?" He presses another kiss onto Max's forehead, unaware of the dingo's true identity.

She considers his question for a few seconds. "The stories never say why; they just say you shouldn't," she answers. "But that howling we heard? That was a weredingo, really, and I've befriended it and--"

"The Max dog is a weredingo? But that means he's a person too?"

"You're getting it perfectly," she comments and he breaks into a huge grin, extremely pleased with himself. "I noticed on nights I went to visit Max the dingo Max the person was gone too--" His eyes widen even more if that's possible by this point and the moonlight makes them appear even larger and bluer. "--and it turns out that it's Max. There weredingo is Max."

Silence.

And then a small giggle. She's never heard a War Boy giggle, or at least not quite as innocently as Nux does even though she knows he's nowhere near what anyone would describe as innocent.

"Max is asleep on me."

She smiles. "And what do you think of all that?"

"We need t' get that convoy 'fore it gets us. War Boys will wanna take it." He makes a face, really thinking about the next part of his answer. "'s real chrome," he answers, looking down at Max. "Blood Bag-- Max is real shiny, I think. A different kind of shiny than Capable, but still shiny." He blinks a few times before looking to Furiosa. "What do you think of all that?"

"I don't like the convoy, but I'm glad Max told us about it." She looks down at Max, fast asleep, his paws twitching in his sleep.

"And?" he prompts.

She reaches over and scratches behind the dingo's ears. "It's surprising, but I guess it's-- guess it's..." She trails off, searching for the right word. Nux watches her expectantly. "It's real chrome."

"Yeah." Nux's voice is surprisingly soft. "Yeah, Blood Bag is real chrome sometimes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not too great at writing action scenes oops.
> 
> This is also the longest chapter to date!
> 
> You guys are really too nice. I've received some of the sweetest comments on this fic and my other Mad Max fic, so thank you so much! o: 
> 
> Also, given the gap between chapters 2 and 3, I'm probably not going to be able to finish this up before I move. Sorry. But I'll finish it as soon as I can, I promise.


	4. Chapter 4

"I noticed," Furiosa begins as she enters their shared room, followed by Max, still drowsy and content from all the attention and petting he'd received, "you didn't wear your leg brace when we'd left."

He nods before sliding down so he's lying on his stomach with his head resting on his paws. "Didn't want to lose it. 's too important." He pauses, thinking. "Anything I wear when shifting is good as lost. Didn't-- I didn't wear my jacket either. 's too important."

She knows the jacket, the old, faded, threadbare leather jacket that was probably black at some point in time, but is now a faded brown and is riddled with cracks. There's something in the pocket-- she doesn't know what-- but she's seem him, they've all seen him, take it out, cradle it in his hand, smile sadly, and then carefully carefully slip it back in. The jacket lies on their bed, carefully folded and placed on top of the pillow.

"Let me get The Dag."

He whines. "'m not bleeding."

She sighs, turns to face him with her hands on her hips. "You're going to get medical attention. I'll carry you there if I have to."

He grunts, acknowledging what she said, but doesn't move from where he's lying. Instead, he rolls over onto his side, gets more comfortable, and then gives one last yawn before closing his eyes and settling down to sleep. She waits a couple minutes, letting him get comfortable just for good measure, and then scoops up the now disgruntled and pissed off dingo in her arms. Max glares at her, growls, but makes no indication of aggression, that he's going to bite or scratch, and she grins, triumphant.

"I told you I'd do it," she gloats.

He narrows his eyes and bares his teeth. "Put me down."

"Not until you agree to see The Dag with me."

"Put me down."

"Well, Max, you know my terms and conditions. If you'd agree to those--"

He sighs. "Fine."

She gently sets him down, mindful of his two hurt legs, and then leads the way to the Sister's shared room-- they're gotten used to the company of each other; it became hard to sleep alone, so they stuck together-- at a slow enough pace for the hurt, tired dingo. At the door, Max sits down as Furiosa knocks.

It's Cheedo who answers. "Oh." She blinks a few times to dispel the sleep from her eyes. "Furiosa, what do you need?"

Furiosa almost flinches at the tone of her voice. She's not their leader. She's not their leader. And she wants to scream it to the sky for all to hear because she's not their leader; she's not the new Immortan and she's not even particularly fond of being addressed as Imperator. She's not cut out for leadership. But she swallows her anger; she's quite good at that.

"We need medical treatment," she answers. "For the dingo."

"Aw." Cheedo kneels down and pets him, rubbing his head. "Alright, but Angharad has been fussy tonight."

"She's finally named the baby?" Furiosa replies.

Cheedo nods before going to wake The Dag, being extra careful to not wake anyone else, while Max silently revels in all the attention he's been receiving. He takes it pretty well like this, but not as well usually. It's different, she thinks, when he's a dingo because no one knows he's the Road Warrior or The Fool; he's just a dingo, a rather large dingo with a limp, but that's it. Also, all the scratches must feel nice. She knows he likes that.

There's a few minutes of comfortable silence between them before The Dag is awake enough to address the issue. Gently cooing and with a frown, she kneels next to Max, prodding at his bloody front leg. There's not a single animal they've ever met, Furiosa thinks, that The Dag hasn't called "sweetheart" at some point in time and Max is certainly not the exception. As she wipes down his bloody front leg and fixes him up and checks his bad hind leg, it's sweetheart-this and sweetheart-that.

"We should give him something to eat," The Dag suggests. "He's so thin. Poor baby."

Furiosa narrows her eyes at Max who meets her gaze, happily wagging his tail and fully enjoying this. She can imagine his stupid smirk so clearly it infuriates her. But she doesn't want to be the jerk who says no to feeding a poor animal, or what The Dag thinks is one, so she gives in.

"Sure, give him some table scraps."

Max wolfs down any and all scraps given to him, much like he'd normally do out of fear he won't have such easy access to food in the future despite how often and fervently the Sisters explained to him that he's not likely to go hungry anymore, not there at the Citadel, not as long as they have anything to say or do about it. But she lets The Dag give him scraps anyway and glares daggers at Max for using this as a way to sneak extra food because he could have just told them he was hungry, though words evade him, especially the words needed for requests.

"Does this lovely boy have a name?" The Dag asks.

"Yes. I named him Max."

She chuckles. "Max?"

Furiosa nods. "And Max here showed me something," she adds. "There's a war convoy on its way and it's got large canons."

"The dingo showed you this?"

"Yes."

The Dag narrows her eyes as she watches Max finish eating his food scraps and Furiosa's heart starts pounding. _Oh, glory,_ she thinks, _She knows something. She knows something and she's_ _doubting me_. Max whines, flattens his ears against his head, and looks up at Furiosa, trembling.

"Where's _our_ Max, then?" The Dag asks, momentarily neglecting to pet Max who huffs and appears cross. Really, on a dingo, it's rather cute and lacks all potentially threatening elements, especially because he's half asleep. "I saw him leave with you."

Furiosa and Max exchange a look, further heightening The Dag's suspicions. Of what, the duo wasn't sure, but they sure knew for a fact that she doesn't quite believe some element of their story and now that they know that she saw them leave together they are, for a lack of a better word, fucked.

"You've heard of, um, weredingoes, right?" Furiosa asks, lowering her voice to a whisper in case anyone happens to walk by, though it's unlikely at this hour. "You've read about them in the books?"

"They're not real," she states with complete and utter confidence.

"Pretty sure 'm real," Max grumbles, and The Dag jumps, looks down at him with wide startled eyes.

The silence drags out for what feels like an hour, made to feel worse by the nearly all-consuming silence around them, only interrupted by the occasional shout or clang of metal from the Boys' barracks and garages. The Dag looks from her hands, to Furiosa who nervously grins, to Max who expectantly watches The Dag.

"Max?" she eventually asks. "Is that really you?"

The dingo nods. "'s me."

"Is there really a war convoy?" she asks next, her thoughts immediately drifting to little Angharad, her daughter named for their dear and departed friend, and the danger she could potentially be in.

"Yes," he answers.

Furiosa elaborates because she can tell he's not going to offer any more. "He saw them take out a mountain village of goat-herders. We went on patrol tonight and they shot at us with handhelds, but we saw their canons. Max got hit in the arm in the firefight."

The Dag nods, closing her eyes. It's a lot to take in all at once.

She opens her eyes and looks down at Max. "Who else knows?"

"You, Furiosa, and Nux," he answers. "'s it."

Furiosa's gaze softens and she rubs behind one of Max's ears. "Tired?"

He grunts and closes his eyes. She assumes that grunt is in the affirmative. The Dag nods, understanding, and then slowly rises. She and Furiosa exchange a hug and she gives Max one last behind the ear scratch before she heads back to the bedroom, leaving the duo alone.

"You're an ass." She crosses her arms, one flesh-and-bone and the other mechanical, across her chest. He wags his tail, grinning. "Don't give me that look."

He laughs; it comes out more like a bark. "Love you too."

* * *

 

"We have news," Furiosa announces to the group consisting of herself, Toast, Cheedo, Nux, Capable, The Dag, baby Angharad, and Max all strewn about what has become their "meeting room."

"And?" Cheedo prompts from where she sits next to Toast.

"Max alerted me of a war convoy with several large, powerful canons headed in our direction," she explains. "Their intentions and destination are unknown, but their course as of when we last saw the convoy last night would take them towards us."

"I've been-- been going out at, um, night, patrolling," Max clarifies. "Watched the convoy take out a village."

Nux quickly nods, full of manic energy once more, and Capable watches him with her face etched with concern. "They asked me to ready the War Boys-- I mean, the Boys, to prepare to fight to defend the Citadel."

"We'd like to hear some other opinions," Furiosa finishes.

While the Sisters discuss their options in hushed whispers before speaking up to tell their thoughts to the group, Max picks up and cradles baby Angharad with a precision and skill and a tenderness that all the Sisters have noticed that suggests that at some point he was a father. He shakes with the tension of holding himself together, but Angharad doesn't notice, completely comfortable and safe in the crook of his arm. Nux smiles at the baby when she reaches up with her pudgy hand to grab at his face.

The two men whisper back and forth over Angharad who coos and babbles happily from her spot in Max's arms and squeals when Nux, who's still amazed at how small she is, how people can be so tiny and soft, covers and uncovers his face; the women discuss war and strategy with the assumption-- though it's true; the former War Boys will be happy to fight once more, happy to have a task to dedicate their restless energy towards-- the Boys will take up arms to protect the Citadel. Angharad, oblivious to the talk of destruction around her, laughs as Max rocks her back and forth and Nux makes faces.

Furiosa doesn't call them back; she knows Max doesn't focus well because he just can't-- it's the ghosts and the hallucinations and years of being alone; it's stripped him-- and Nux is young and excitable with too much energy but he means well, so she leaves them be.

"Is she supposed to be so small?" Nux asks for approximately the hundredth time.

Max nods. "Yes."

"Really?" He sounds skeptical.

"Mmhm."

"She's real chrome." Nux chatters a lot to fill the silence, especially with Max, but he's a good listener and Nux likes to speak, so it's no trouble, really. "And tiny. She's real tiny, but I'd never known that babies are so shiny and chrome." He pauses. "But nothing is as chrome as Capable, I think, not even the War Rig." He reaches over, pets Max's shoulder, and then his head. "What d'you think is the chromest thing?"

He considers the question, tilting his head to the side and wincing as he tries to fight off the voices of the dead, of the ghosts who follow him even in the safe halls of the Citadel, grabbing at him from the shadows, waiting for their chance to strike and drag him down too. His shakes his, vision blurs, heart rate accelerates. But he suppresses it. He focuses on Angharad in his arms and pushes it all away except for the there-and-now.

"I don't know," he answers. "I don't know what the chromest thing is, but I know some pretty chrome people."

"Like who?"

"You're pretty chrome and--"

"Me?" He places a hand on his own chest, eyes wide, and it kills Max because he's so young.

Max nods.

"You-- you think I'm chrome?" He lunges over and hugs him, squeezing, but being careful to mind Angharad in Max's arms. "But you're one of the chromest people I know!"

Max hugs him back and the Sisters choose that moment to turn back to them, ready to discuss the plan. They exchange an amused look at the sight before them: Nux babbling and clinging to Max with tears in his eyes as Max holds Angharad in one arm and pets Nux's head with his free hand, also talking.

"Are you two having a moment?" Toast asks.

Furiosa sighs, but it's all in good fun, as Nux and Max separate and Max hands Angharad back to The Dag.

"We have a plan."

The group moves in closer to listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I don't feel much of substance occurred in this chapter, but when I tried to skip forward to more of the action, it just didn't flow right from chapter 3, so I guess a slower chapter was needed. 
> 
> As for the object in Max's jacket pocket, I like to sadly think he somehow managed to save and keep his Main Force Patrol badge oops. 
> 
> I'm also really fond the couple paragraphs where the women discuss war, while Max and Nux are preoccupied with the baby? Also, the thing about Max and Nux kind of petting each other comes from a couple gifs I saw and, yep, they do pet each other in the movie, which kills me. I love Max and Nux as friends. 
> 
> I don't know exactly when we're unplugging the router, modem, etc. so I don't know whether or not this will be the last update before I move. If it is, expect me back about around July 10th at the earliest. I'll try to write during the trip, but I won't be able to post anything until I'm settled in the new house and we've hooked everything up.


	5. Chapter 5

As preparations for war rev up, the Boys become more and more excitable, more eager to please, running around the Citadel, recruiting anyone they can to help, which is how Capable, Max, and Toast find themselves helping Nux and his lancer Slit repair and modify their car. For all they've picked up about cars, Capable and Toast aren't the most useful help, though they do a pretty chrome job cleaning the car, while Max launches himself into his task of repairing the underneath with Nux, and Slit repairs any broken lances.

Slit glances over at Capable and Toast, watching them work, but doesn't speak. When Capable catches his gaze, she smiles and he smiles back. Toast, also having noticed the Boy watching them shudders at his grin, at the staples and scars decorating his face and his red eye, while Capable actually grins. And she means it like she truly means every compliment, every encouragement, every smile, every laugh she gives to the Boys and Pups. 

Toast admires that but can't force herself to smile at Slit, not with those scars and that red eye.

Underneath the car, they can hear Max and Nux talking, but can't make out the details of their conversation.

After rambling on about how chrome the Sisters are and how shiny it is that they're allowed to get seconds at meals and that the servings are bigger than anything they were allowed to eat before and they're allowed to drink more aqua cola than before too, Nux pauses to take a breath and Max quietly celebrates the five second period of silence before the excitable Boy speaks again.

"How's it work that you're a dingo and person?" the Boy asks. "And how's it work that me an' Furiosa both got blood from you? Does that do anythin' to us?"

Max pauses, his eyes widening, and he moves to sit up, but only succeeds in slamming his face on the underside of the car. He groans, cupping his now bleeding nose in one of his hands.

Capable jumps at the noise and Toast crouches down, peering under the car.

"You boys alright?" she asks, while Capable silently crouches next to her.

"Blood Bag hit his face on the car!" Nux explains, helping pull Max out from under the car, forgetting his question and minding Max's hurt arm and leg. He grabs a relatively clean oil rag and hands it to him to use to sop up some of the blood. "He tried to sit up."

Slit looks down at them from his perch up on the hood of the car. "Can't have you bloodyin' yerself up before the fun."

Max scowls, but it doesn't look so threatening as he holds a rag to his bleeding nose and Nux pets his head.

* * *

 

"Do you think they'll be ready?" Furiosa asks Max that night as they settle into bed.

"Yes," he answers, not offering anything further.

She wishes he would elaborate, but doesn't push him to speak more. She knows he finds speaking hard, knows better than to do that to him.

"And how's your arm?"

He moves his arm to show it bends and moves without too much difficulty. "Fine." He quietly sighs before speaking next. "Nux asked me about how you two have gotten blood transfusions from me."

"And?" she prompts.

"I don't know." He slowly sits up. "I've heard-- heard that it can, um, do things to receive blood from-- y'know, but I've never-- never seen it happen before."

"Heard it? From who?"

He squints a bit, brushes at his face. "The others."

She fights the urge to hold down his hands so he stops moving so much, but instead encourages him to continue speaking. "You know others?"

"Did," he corrects. "Once."

He has that far away look in his eyes, the look that means he's seeing ghosts in the corners in the shadows and they're reaching for him, pulling, the look she's learned to associate with his panic attacks when he shakes and doesn't know who he is anymore and forgets how to speak. And she pulls him close, starts running a hand through his hair to keep him with her.

"Tell me about them," she murmurs. "What were they like?"

He sighs, shuddering. "We were a pack," he quietly explains, his voice barely audible even so close to each other. "There was my Jessie and our Sprog. We had a daughter too." He doesn't offer his daughter's name and she makes no effort to expel it from him. "And Goose. We--" He pauses and blinks. "--we were a pack until Goose was-- Goose wasn't with us anymore. Killed. Jessie too. And Sprog. And our little girl, our poor little...."

He trails off, shaking, and she knows he's lost him then, that he's unlikely to finish.

Neither one sleeps much that night, Furiosa and Nux's question about the blood transfusions forgotten once more.

* * *

 

"Furiosa?"

Furiosa is surprised to find herself cornered, physically cornered, not just the social sense of being forced into something, but literally trapped in a corner in the hallway by Capable standing in front of her with her hands on her hips, and a slight frown and expectant look on her face. She can't let herself appear unnerved, not so soon to what may become a full-scale war.

"The dingo," Capable says, crossing her arms. "Where is it?"

"I let it go," Furiosa lies. "It's a wild animal."

"Then how'd Max end up with the same injuries?"

And Furiosa knows she's trapped not just physically, but also in the sense that she'd have to tell Capable without consulting Max first. At least she'd had some sort of permission in telling Nux and The Dag, but this was different. It feels like betrayal. And she caves because she can't have Capable angry at her or suspicious and she has to trust Max to understand and forgive her for this.

"Because it is Max," she admits. "It took me some time to place it all together, but it makes sense, I swear. You've heard of weredingoes?"

"I know you're not supposed to trust them 'cause they steal children and eat children," Capable answers, narrowing her eyes and raising her voice. "Haven't you heard the stories?"

"Do you think Max would do that? You've seen him with Angharad!" She pauses, attempts to regain her composure. She can't afford this; she can't afford to lose Capable. "You've heard the other stories, right? How they're the protectors of travelers?"

"No, I--"

"You've also heard about how valuable their coats and claws are? The Immortan-- Joe-- he would-- he made us keep an eye out for them. I can't tell you how many dingoes I've killed for them to shift back and forth from human to dingo to human as they die just for their coats and claws and blood. Their blood is something special. Apparently, it has healing qualities and--"

"I don't care what healing qualities or whatever weredingoes have! I don't know what your people said about weredingoes, but to mine they're bad news!" She takes a couple deep breaths. "Just tell me you know what you're doing and Max won't turn on us, okay?"

Capable sounds tired, run down, close to tears. She enjoys her job helping the Boys and Pups, she really does, and her relationship with Nux, which some whispers say is opening to perhaps welcome in Silt, but she's tired and the strain of preparing for war, of knowing some of the Boys and Pups she's done so well with probably won't come back, of watching those already too ill to save die, is wearing her thin.

"Capable." She pulls the other woman into a somewhat awkward, one-armed hug-- she hadn't gotten around to putting on her prosthetic that morning-- and quietly sighs. "I can't promise you I know exactly what I'm doing because I wasn't even sure on the Fury Road, but I have an idea now like I did then. And we have no reason to believe Max would turn on us. You've seen him with everyone and I think this is as close to love as he can get with how hurt he's been by everything. We'll think of something and give it our best."

* * *

 

"Hey, Nux, I, um, wanted to get back to you. On the blood transfusion question."

Nux looks up from the engine he's working on and breaks into a large grin when he sees who the speaker is. Of course, he was already smiling when he was working-- he loves working with his hands, after all, especially on engines-- but the voice and now the appearance of Max, one of the chromest people there is, makes that grin grow.

"Blood Bag!" he enthusiastically greets, putting down his tools and waving his arms.

Max gingerly sits on the edge of Nux's work bench, awkwardly grinning and trying to take up as little space as possible, while Nux pulls him into a rough hug, and then grabs the back of his neck and pulls his head close so their foreheads touch. Max grabs the back of the other man's neck, recognizing the gesture as something important among the Boys and he's actually a bit honored Nux would want to do that with him. After a few seconds, Nux releases him and pulls away. He smiles and waits for Max to explain himself.

"You asked about the blood transfusions, right? And what that means?

Nux nods. "I did!"

"I don't know." Max scratches at the side of his face, nervously glancing around the room. "I don't know what the transfusions did. Thought it over and I don't know."

"Is that bad?"

"Not that I know of." He takes a sip of water from his canteen. "Drinking the blood of a weredingo, which, um usually involves killing said weredingo, can help heal you, so I can, um, only-- only assume a transfusion-- that would be good for you too."

Nux makes a disgusted face. "Ew."

"Says the guy who eats raw lizards," he shoots back.

He laughs. "You eat them too!"

"Hey, food is food and I'm fond of lizards."

Nux falls silent for a few seconds, staring at his hands, and then looking at the other man. "Do you think that your blood might stop Larry and Barry?" He gulps. "From the transfusion?"

"It might."

And Nux looks so happy then that Max wishes it does help. He'd considered it before, that the transfusions might do more than simply provide him with blood, but he'd never really _wished_ it would until he sees the hope in Nux's eyes and, glory, he's so young. Not that Max is particularly old, but Nux is young and could potentially have a much longer, less painful life without Larry and Barry assaulting his windpipe.

Max pulls at his hair. "If it-- if it doesn't help, I could always just-- just give you some blood."

"Blood Bag!"

Nux's words are almost cut off by a choking sound and as his arms wrap around Max, he realizes what the sound was and his eyes widen. _Oh, glory,_ he thinks, _No no no. He's crying. Fuck. What do I do?_ Very awkwardly and slowly, Max hugs Nux back, patting his back and making very quiet sounds he hopes come off more soothing than they do awkward and weird, though he definitely feels more nervous and scared than he does comforting.

"You'd do that for real?" he asks, and then sniffles. "You're so chrome, Blood Bag."

"Yeah, yeah, I'd do it. Now please don't cry."

* * *

 

"Maaaax!" 

Max, just about to sit down, curses because he's been on his feet, more importantly, on his bad leg, nearly all day long and all he wants to do is sit and massage his achy muscles. Instead, he grumbles as he lumbers down the hall to find Furiosa and Nux sitting in a mostly-empty room together, watching him expectantly. With a loud sigh, he sits on the ground across from them and begins to rub around his hurt knee.

"Yes?" he mumbles.

"I've done some reading and I've found something you should know," Furiosa begins, opening a book to a bookmarked page.

Nux watches with wide eyes, amazed she can read when, to him, the books just look like nonsense lines scratched onto the papers. He hopes Furiosa or Capable or The Dag or Max or anyone can teach him so he can someday read the nonsense lines and get real sense words out of them too.

"Yes?" He stops rubbing a particularly achy muscle to watch her.

"There's a chance that because your blood is now in our bloodstreams that, well, Nux and I, we might--"

"Oh, glory," Max interrupts, catching on. "You're fucking with me, right? This is a joke, right?"

She shakes her head and he can tell from the look in her eyes that she's not kidding.

"What do you mean?" Nux asks. "Blood Bag? Imperator?"

"It means I might have two young, inexperienced weredingoes to deal with," Max explains. "You two."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I got a comment on the last chapter about how Furiosa and Nux both took blood from Max, which is funny since I'd already had some of this chapter written and planned when I received that. Good thinking! I was wondering if anyone would catch on to that. 
> 
> I swear the actual battle will probably begin in the next chapter. I didn't include the battle in this chapter because I knew it would be the last thing I posted before packing up and I didn't want to leave it like that in the middle of the battle.
> 
> Also, on June 30th we're unplugging our router, modem, etc so I won't be able to post anything. I'll try to write along the way as we drive cross-country, but I can't promise anything. I'm so sorry about this, but there will be a pretty large gap between chapters 5 and 6. I probably won't have good Internet access until July 9th or 10th.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about the gap between the chapters, but I'm now settled down in the new house, my stuff is here, and we have internet! Also, I planned to write in the car, totally forgetting I'm the type of person who can't read or write in the car without massive headaches. So expect updates more often now that I'm all settled, but I might be stuck using my phone, so please factor that in.  
> But the fate of my 7+ year old laptop is unsure, so this was typed on my phone. If you could please point out any typos, that'd be great. I'm not too great at typing on my phone.

Max doesn't sleep much that night, practically vibrating with access energy, the kind he best burned by shifting and running through the sand, usually by chasing small animals, but Furiosa thinks it best he stay indoors with the approaching war convoy a constant danger. He sighs and makes a quiet, desperate keening noise as he stared out the window, watching the desert sands be buffeted by the strong winds. And Furiosa, normally annoyed by this sort of behavior, now having seen him dash to and fro, tongue lolling and panting, understands his anxieties at being kept indoors. To relieve some of the tension pulling at his chest and bones and every fiber of his being, he shifts. Gently, he rests his head on her leg and sighs as he feels her hands run through his fur, and then she scratches behind his ears.

"What happens if-- if Nux and I really do shift too?" she asks.

He quietly hums. "I've got two pups."

"Pups?"

"In experience, not age." "You don't sound too pleased.

He hums again. "Pups don't last long with me."

* * *

 Nux and Dowel, a Pup almost the age of a Boy, all limbs and awkwardly proportioned, but harboring a massive need to please like most of the Boys and Pups, stand guard from one of the taller towers in the harsh midday sun. Though their clay offers some protection and no doubt prevents their fair skin from burning, the heat is still unbearable. Dowel grabs his flask of aqua cola and takes a sip, while Nux watches the still sand dunes, shielding his eyes from the glare with his hand.

"See anythin'?" the Pup asks.

Nux shakes his head. "No, 's just sand."

Dowel sighs and leans back against the wall, only the tiniest bit cooler than the surrounding air, but still a momentary relief from the scalding, dry, relentless desert air.

"You sure there's even a real convoy?" Dowel questions, narrowing his eyes against the harsh glare. "Looks pretty quiet to me."

"Blood Bag an' the Imperator said they saw it, so it's real," Nux replies, nodding, full of energy, a sharp contrast to his state that previous night when Larry and Barry's no-holds-bared assault on his windpipe rendered him weak and pale and shaky. "'s real as I am."

Dowel nods, also certain in the fact Max and Furiosa wouldn't lie about an approaching war convoy.

* * *

Max has never sat in on a war council, not officially. Really, he's a stranger to sitting in on councils as a whole, as he generally acts alone. Or at least he tells himself he acts alone, even when protecting and fighting for the benefit of others. He doesn't lie to himself this time, surprisingly easily accepts the fact he's a part of a team, a part of something bigger. It feels nice, almost like hope.

He only half-listens to the important decisions being made around him. He doesn't need their plans, he thinks, he'll go in like he always does, his own safety be damned; he brings death with him, so perhaps the Citadel would be safer with him dead anyway. He tries to push those thoughts aside; Furiosa says they're not good for him.

There are no ghosts pounding on his skull, not tonight.

And Nux looks well, which takes a weight off him he wasn't aware was there in the first place.

"Max?" someone asks and he blinks, confused.

It's Toast and she's frowning, her head tilted to the side a bit and he mirrors her frown, unsure what exactly to do, as he'd missed the entire conversation. (Something in the back of his head is screaming, clawing, howling, as always at the sight of Toast, so young, so much like what he likes to think his daughter would be like and he realizes he hasn't seen her ghost in some time now.) He doesn't speak; he hasn't been given anything to echo and he's feeling unhinged.

"Blood Bag?" Nux asks, eyes wide and startling as always. "You okay?"

He nods. "Chrome."

And Nux's face lights up.

"How much of our conversation did you actually hear?" Cheedo grumbles.

He considers lying, but it's not worth it. Maybe if there were only one of them, he would, but lying to this many women (and Nux), especially these particular women who he is rather fond of-- he refuses to say love; bad things happen to people he loves-- feels very wrong.

"None of it," he admits, ashamed.

His shame is short-lived, as before anyone can scold him, the ground beneath them sways and a loud boom rattles the walls. His breathing quickens, his lungs feel as if collapsing, but he fends off the ghosts; the sounds of the Sisters and Nux and Slit calling out to each other chases his ghosts away.

"Everyone alright?" Furiosa asks as a small group of Boys and Pups, panting and sweating, pours in; they'd most likely started running before the commotion, came to warn them, but weren't fast enough.

"There's a canon!" Rip, the youngest Pup there, so thin and short and overall so tiny, squeaks, late with the news. "An' it hit the wall!" The other Pups, among them Rook, a great blackthumb in the makings, and Shrew, a great helper in the Dag's gardens, and Boys, including Snag, just barely a Boy and not a Pup, begin to speak over each other.

Furiosa sighs, rubs at her temples. "Thank you and good job," she breathes and their faces light up at the praise. "Spread the word that you need to start up your cars, prepare the war rigs."

"Yes, Imperator!" they reply almost simultaneously, except for Rip, a second or two behind the others.

And as they move to march off to alert the others, Capable scoops up Rip in her arms the the Pup, at most seven years old, huffs and kicks.

"I gotta go!" he protests. "I gotta go to war 'cause 'm a War Pup." He bares his teeth. "And 'm shiny an' chrome an' terrifyin'!"

Capable shoots Furiosa a look, pleading for her to not force the Pups to fight. The Boys; sure, it's a shame, but it's what they know and do best and they're excited. The Pups; despite their enthusiasm they're too young.

"The Pups will not fight today," Furiosa states.

And a weight, an oppressive force on all their chests, relents. Even the Boys, supposedly hardened and opposed to everything "soft," appear to breathe easier.

Another canon blast rocks the Citadel.

"Max, come with me!" And Furiosa is off without another word, Max following.

"What's the plan?" he asks, ignoring the throb of his bad leg.

She doesn't stop to speak to him, just keeps running. "We're taking our war rig," she explains. "We're taking them head-on with the Boys. We can overpower them."

"Even with all our dead?"

"The Boys we have left are loyal."

He remembers him, remembers the old, gnarled, tumor-ridden War Boy, the one who seems friends with Furiosa. "The Ace?"

"He leads them."

"You trust him?"

"With my life."

Max gives a grunt in response, a grunt that means that if she can trust the Ace with her life, he too can trust the old, perhaps too old, Boy with his too. Or that's what Furiosa assumes that grunt means. Really, she thinks she might be looking too far into his various noises, searching for meaning where he's only aiming to fill gaps in a conversation the best he can.

The garages are full of noise, roaring, banging, screaming, Boys and some older Pups, nearly Boys, shoving each other around and getting in and on their vehicles, including none other than Nux and Slit. The noise is electrifying, contagious, too much for Max who grows dizzy and irritated and confused at the ringing and buzzing around him, calmed only by climbing into the war rig with Furiosa and slamming the door shut with a satisfying clang, using the noise, the controlled noise, to ground himself in the moment.

"You drive," Furiosa orders, readying her gun. "I'll shoot."

He nods wordlessly. This is familiar; this he can do.

She shouts over the hum of the engine, over the thumping of their hearts and the rush of adrenaline coursing through their veins, also minding how his hearing isn't exactly what it should be. "On the off chance that Nux and I really are--"

He jerks the wheel to avoid hitting one of their own vehicles. "What?"

She raises her voice, cursing his hearing loss. "Is it potentially harmful to Nux and I if we really were weredingoes?"

He snorts. "Like what?"

"I don't know." She pulls the trigger; the shot connects. "Risks we should know about."

He hums, ramming into a smaller vehicle and considering his answer as she continued to unleash round after round on the convoy. As far as the duo could see, they possessed no major identifying marks; they don't know who the convoy is, where they're from. And they're too busy dodging bullets and shooting their own to search for identifying marks.

"Furiosa," he yells over the noise, the loudest she's heard him beyond his howling, breaking their steady rhythm of breathing and shooting. "The canons! They're going for the Citadel walls!"

"Fuck!"

She tears her gaze from her current target and instead turns towards the Citadel, their tall-walled home containing the remainder of the Sisters, rationing in case the siege is long-lasting, healing, calming, minus Cheedo who rides alongside Nux and Slit-- she's in good hands-- and everything else she knows, everything else she's fought for. She can't let them take it; she'd die first.

Max jerks the wheel, turning the war rig around, nearly tipping the duo over. He's panting, shaking, overcome by an adrenaline high as they zip past overturned cars, both their own, the bodies of Boys strewn next to them, and those from the war convoy.

They draw closer, closer to the two largest vehicles in the convoy, the canons, and Furiosa wonders how it got so close without tipping off anyone but the Pups and Boys who alarmed them too late.

And then she realizes what he's doing.

"Max!"

There's a loud crashing noise, but it sounds slightly muffled, as if far away, and she screams, raising her arms to shield her head, as Max goes limp in the driver's seat. The world wrenches around her, being thrown onto its side and then uncontrollably spinning around them, full of screams and clangs and so much noise noise noise.

With her ears ringing, every other sound minimized to barely audible buzzing, Furiosa lifts her head, feeling a warm liquid run down her flesh-and-bone arm. A sudden, severe shaking had taken control of her hands and still held them in its grip as she gropes about the car, calling, "Max? Max?"

A small sound answers her, a whimper. And there's a dingo lying across the front seats, cut and bleeding and whimpering.

It's not until she moves that she realizes how hurt she is. A burning pain shoots through her side and she's certain there's a broken rib or two hiding somewhere in her torso, a weakness she can't afford, not now with the Citadel at stake. But Max looks worse-- he always does; he has the worst luck-- with blood oozing from a wound on his neck and red splattering his face and muzzle. She pauses, breathing heavily, before beginning again, minding her motions to avoid agitating her ribs, while making good time.

"Max?"

He whines, a high desperate sound. "Got the canons."

She forces a small grin. "Yeah, we did."

He weakly wags his tail. "Protected the Citadel."

"Don't talk like that." She runs a hand through his fur, ignoring the blood. "You're making it. You've just lost a lot of blood, but we'll fix you up."

With a few painful, but well-aimed and forceful kicks, the passenger side door clatters open, revealing to Furiosa that the war rig had flipped over upside down and that they had indeed successfully taken out both large canons, while the kamakrazee Boys gleefully handle the rest of the convoy, doing what they do best. Wincing at the pain radiating from her ribs, she scoops up the dingo and stumbles out of the war rig and falls into the sand.

They're close to the Citadel; she can see the lights on inside from a high window. Max whines still. They're so close, so close, the nighttime desert winds around them picking up, buffeting them with sand, Furiosa clutching Max's body-- he's still breathing, he's still breathing, he's still breathing-- when they're stopped in their path. By a dingo. A dingo with awkward proportions-- it's nearly all long skinny legs-- and what can almost be classified as a grin. Her hand, the one not supporting Max as much, drifts towards her gun.

"Blood Bag!" the dingo barks, wildly wagging its tail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for bearing with me through the move and this chapter typed up on my phone. 
> 
> Also, sorry for the shit battle scene oops


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter I reveal I enjoy harming Max and having other characters take care of him

Max's head is pounding and he attempts a growl to silence the pounding, to silence the voices, to scare off the hands of the ghosts reaching for him always. Suddenly, he's jerked to the side, painfully, and his eyes snap open to see sand sand sand everywhere, above him, below him, on him, in his mouth, in his eyes. And then there's Furiosa next to him, battered and bruised and covered in sand, and he whines. There are voices around him, other voices, not the loud ones that yell at him and ask him why he couldn't do it, why he wasn't enough, and they're more concrete, more alive, but muffled, than the other voices, than Jessie and Goose's voices, but they hurt and he wants them to stop. There's something warm and wet on his head and he wants that, whatever it is, to stop too.

"Max?" Furiosa asks, jostling his shoulder; it's meant to be gentle, but it hurts still and he whines a little. "Stay with me."

He doesn't speak, shakes his head to clear his thoughts even though it hurts and jumbles his thoughts even more.

There are three other figures in the sand near them, or at least he thinks it's three more-- his vision is blurring-- and a car he thinks is familiar to him, but he just can't place where from or why. The few figures rise, two of them brush sand off their bodies, and then they move towards him and Furiosa. The third-- he narrows his eyes at it-- and then its scent-- it's another dingo-- hits him and he relaxes at its familiarity; he knows that dingo and he's pack. The closer the group grows, the easier they are to make out amongst the swirling sands and vehicles. One's broad, painted white with a smudge of black across his forehead, staples in his face, a red eye; the other's a woman with longer brown hair, a stern face that he likes for some reason, he knows that face he knows that face; the third is a dingo, skinny with awkwardly long limbs and startling blue eyes and something he can't make out carved into its chest and patchy fur.

" _Nux_?" Max whimpers, finally recognizing him.

The other dingo sniffs around Max's head, worriedly licking at the blood to clean him. " _Blood Bag! You're alive! We saw what you did_."

" _My head hurts._ "

" _That was real chrome, shiny and nice and terrifyin', but you've knocked your head hard_."

Furiosa slowly moves to her feet, wincing at the pain originating deep in her chest, to greet Slit, Cheedo, and-- Fuck. She gapes at the dingo, eyes wide, because Max had been unsure, he had no idea what would happen, what was even possible.

And here was Nux, apparently a weredingo.

Which means she may as well be one too and she starts to panic because it's not like she has enough to worry about with the war convoy and reestablishing the Citadel without worrying about being a weredingo too.

She's pulled out of her thoughts by another high-pitched whine from Max. He's lying on his side, giving no indications he's going to try to get up, and Nux sniffs around him, also whining. Slit looks nothing short of exasperated and somewhere between shocked and irritated, but there's some affection there underneath the violence and yelling; really, that's how his entire relationship with Nux seems and it mirrors the relationship of a lot of lancer and driver pairs she's seen. They can't be seen as soft, so they have to hide their love in the violence, but she can make it out sometimes in lancer and driver pairs, and in the relationships between Boys and Pups.

"What happened?" Cheedo asks, her goggles crooked and one lens cracked; the glass has cut her forehead and she's bleeding, but not too much.

Furiosa rubs circles on Max's side as she speaks. "We drove at the larger canons and took them out. Max shifted after the impact and he's hurt. What happened to you?"

"Our car flipped," Cheedo answers. "Slit was thrown, but he's alright. I don't know when exactly Nux shifted." Her eyes widen. "Does this mean you're--"

"Probably," Furiosa interrupts, nodding. "Probably."

"Blood Bag's hurt bad," Nux whines.

It would be chrome, should be chrome, Nux thinks, buts it's not and he can't place exactly why. Maybe it's because there's no Immortan Joe anymore or no Valhalla anymore, something he can't bring himself to believe no matter how much he hears it. It's not chrome to see Blood Bag like this and he's vaguely aware it's because of something called _pack,_  even though he's not exactly sure what it is; that word pops to mind and it feels important. Pack feels like him and Slit and some of the other Boys, some of their friends, and the Sisters too.

Slit, slightly battered and bruised, crouches next to his driver and picks up the other dingo, holding him much more gently than anyone would have thought possible, especially from him, much like how Nux touches Capable. Max is limp and he slowly closes his eyes.

The group's march back is disorganized, slow due to various bumps and bruises and Furiosa's ribs. Mainly, they're shaken and that's what takes the longest; it's difficult to be thrown around, and then to walk normally. Luckily, their forces are winning, are moving the fray further from the Citadel, so the walk isn't nearly as deadly as it could be.

Max keeps his eyes shut. Everything's spinning around him and everything sounds muffled like he has his head underwater-- he's not too sure about that; he's only vaguely aware of the fact he's ever had his head underwater before, but he can't remember the feeling of water on his skin or fur. He is, however, aware of another liquid on his head, in his mouth, leaking from him, but he's not sure if it's water; it's too thick and warm and tastes metallic and heavy.

Nux whines. "Blood Bag's losing a lot of blood."

Cheedo nods. She's been gnawing on her lip, losing blood she doesn't need to be losing out of worry. And Furiosa, still very much bothered by her ribs, spares Max a worried glance he's too far gone to see.

The sun's quickly receding in the horizon and it'll soon be too dark to see, so the group decides to rest. It's not worth walking in the dark if they can't see their enemies.

But there's Max.

Half an hour ago, he'd started keening and violently shaking. By the time they stopped, he'd fallen silent, but still shook. Occasionally, he whines or cries out.

"You don't have any medical supplies?" Furiosa asks Cheedo.

Cheedo sighs. "The Citadel hardly has any medical supplies aside from the Organic Mechanic's and I'd hardly consider those real medical supplies anyway."

Nux lies down next to Max so they can share body heat and licks the other dingo's face clean, while Furiosa checks the wounds on his neck and back. They're deep. They've stopped bleeding, but they're deep and ugly and they need real medical attention to ward off infections.

She sits awake, offers to take the first watch, doesn't plan on letting anyone else actually take a watch, and sits next to Max and Nux, running a hand through Max's fur. It's hard to think of him as a person and an animal, but it's gotten easier and she can tell what's so _Max_ about the dingo now.

"You're okay. You're okay." She doesn't know if she's saying it for his benefit or for hers.

Very slowly, he opens his eyes and watches her with a cloudy look in his eyes and his mouth slack. He's in pain, she can tell. For a second she wonders if he'd want to be put down, but she pushes that thought away as quickly as it comes. She won't shoot Max; as long as he's lucid and not at risk of injuring one of the Sisters, she won't shoot him.

She quietly talks to him through the night, even though she's almost entirely positive he can't understand what she's saying.

The two sit the whole night awake, Furiosa on watch and Max in pain, both unable to sleep. She describes the landscape to him, hopes that helps.

"It's a cool night. You're probably warm with infection, but it's cool," she begins. "The sky's dark, but not black. It's a very dark blue with a weird sort of glow to it. The stars are all out and they're shining. I've learned some constellations from Toast."

Quietly, she points on several constellations and explains their stories to him, how these people came to be immortalized in the stars for their deeds. Some she tells because she thinks he'll enjoy the story, some she tells to fill the silence, aside from his crying and panting, that would reign supreme otherwise.

There's a rustling noise next to her and she sees Slit raise his head to watch them. He tilts his head to the side, focusing on Max, and then on Nux. Very slowly, he reaches out, pets Nux's head, and smiles. It's creepy, given the staples in his face, but there's something sweet about how gentle he is. But that sweetness is gone when their eyes meet and he looks horrified.

"I, uh, I have never seen a dingo before," he quietly explains.

She offers a small grin. "I have, but never this close."

"Imperator, how can Blood Bag and Nux be dingoes?"

If it were anyone else, she'd probably offer an exasperated sigh because she's so tired of explaining, but she considers her audience and how, really, the Boys don't know all that much. They're not dumb, that's for sure, they just don't know much beyond cars and war, and a weredingo is far beyond that, so she explains all she knows about weredingoes to him.

She expects some big reaction from the awestruck look on his face and his eyes are wide, almost like how Nux's are all the time, but he just offers a toothy grin and a simple, "That's chrome!"

The sun rises early in the morning, scorching the group and prompting them into action. Moving is horrible because it's hot, but simply sitting still is somehow worse.

But Max doesn't want to move.

He's gotten worse in the night, has grown more tired and weak, and some of his wounds, oozing and warm, are no doubt infected, especially a particularly gross and wet gash across his side. Cheedo, Furiosa, and Nux, still a dingo, stand in a circle around him, exchanging concerned looks, while Slit scoops him up again. Furiosa bristles with anger at the fact she's hurt her ribs and has left Slit to do all the work, isn't able to help carry Max.

He easily goes limp in Slit's arms and leans against the Boy. He's a quiet passenger, except for when he's whining, and Furiosa thanks any and every deity that he hasn't yet become delusional in his sickness and attacked any of them yet. In fact, he seems devoid of any kind of aggression, seemingly too tired to fight.

(Really, it worries her. A small part of her might feel better if he went mad, lived up to the title Mad Max, and attacked them. He's not a still person, he's not _supposed_ to be.)

They march on through the sand and towards the Citadel in the blazing heat.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we've got a few chapters left! Also, sorry for the gap between chapters.

Max is growling, snarling, crouched in the sand and bristling to appear as big and threatening as he can with two awfully infected oozing wounds on his side and a head injury; there's no cut, but there's a bump and he's showing obvious signs of having hit his head hard in the crash. Slit sighs and sits down in the sand with his arms littered with scratches and bites from when he tried to pick Max up. Nux quietly whines and rests his head on his lancer's knee as they stand in a circle around Max, but far enough from him he won't lunge or feel threatened.

Cheedo huffs, crossing her arms across her chest. "Why is he doing this when--"

"Cheedo, remember he's feral," Furiosa interrupts. "Whatever we do, he's really not ours and he's feral." 

"'s normal, I think," Slit offers. "Seen tons of War Boys do it. Ya get hurt and you don't wanna get hurt more." 

Nux nods. "He also hit his head, so he might be confused. 's probably scared too." 

"We have to wait until he's calm enough to carry," Furiosa says.

Slowly and with some grumbling, the group sits back down in the sand under the rock outcropping they had spent the night under. At night, it kept the winds from buffeting them and, during the day, it keeps them somewhat cool. 

Slowly, Max calms and Furiosa witnesses the process in clear steps, while Slit naps, and Cheedo and Slit quietly talk.

First, it's his eyes. The fear disappears and is replaced with an all-consuming and heavy-lidded exhaustion. Next, it's his teeth; he stops baring them. His posture is next. His hackles relax and he slowly slowly moves so he's lying down on his stomach in the sand with his ears back flat against his head and his tongue poking out a little. 

"We're good," Furiosa says loud enough for the others to hear her, but not enough to disturb Max. "We can move now." 

Wordlessly, Slit scoops the dingo up in his cut arms and the group begins their trek back to the Citadel. Thankfully, the battle is still far enough from the walls to give them a relatively clear passage. 

Max goes limp in his arms and keeps his eyes closed, while Furiosa makes her way to the front of the group. Nux plods along a little bit behind Furiosa, occasionally sniffing the air. It must be hot, Slit thinks, to have fur. Cheedo walks a little behind Slit, keeping watch from the back. 

"There are others," Max says quietly so that Slit, but no one else, can hear.

He hums. He's not sure why Max is speaking given his usual aversion to it, but he goes along. "Yeah?"

The dingo keeps his eyes closed. "Others. They're nearby."

"How'd you know that?"

"They're my pack."

Slit pauses; he didn't think Max had a pack anymore. Well, he guesses that technically Nux would be his pack. And maybe the Sisters too? He doesn't know what constitutes a pack, really. 

But he knows Max doesn't have one.

He swallows, continues to go along with it. "What're they like? Your pack?"

"Good. I have a mate. Her name's Jessie."

Slit nods, and then turns to Cheedo and mouths, /He's losing it./ When he turns back to Max, he's still talking. 

"We have two pups," Max adds. "A little boy and a girl." 

While Slit and Max talk, Cheedo walks up to Furiosa and describes the situation to her, that Max is talking a lot about personal matters and, really, it's not characteristic of him and that makes it a reason to worry, right?

Furiosa sighs. "He's definitely hit his head." 

"He'll make it, right?"

"He's stubborn. I wouldn't put it past him to make it." She even smiles a little, laughing at herself.

"You believe in your madman? Even now?"

"Believed in my Fool on the Fury Road. Why wouldn't I here? If anyone is stubborn enough to live, it's him." 

Suddenly, Nux stops, sniffing the ground and Slit frowns, which is a terrifying look on him paired with the staples in his face. Cheedo and Furiosa stop as well, while Slit tries to hush Max who continues to talk and talk and talk.

"We're near the tunnels," Nux says and Slit breaks into a wide grin.

"The tunnels!" Slit agrees, nodding.

Furiosa laughs, a light and almost happy sound. Having worked on the War Rig and with the Ace, she knows the tunnels under the Citadel well. 

Cheedo frowns, looks annoyed like someone left out of a joke. "The tunnels?" she echoes. 

"There are tunnels," Furiosa explains as Nux excitedly leads the way, "under the Citadel used by War Boys. They'll be cooler and we'll be safe there."

"We can enter the Citadel through them?" Cheedo asks.

"Yes," Furiosa answers. "We can through the barracks."

Cheedo's face lights up and she allows herself a few seconds of laughter because it sounds so simple. A tunnel! For far from the first time in her life, she hopes it's as simple as it sounds.

It's a short walk, especially compared to their trek the precious day. But there's the mouth to a tunnel in the desert and Cheedo allows herself to laugh again because it's so visible. Of course no one not from the Citadel would enter; there's hardly anyone to do the entering and it's close enough in vicinity to the Citadel they damn well know whose territory they're in. It's a wide mouth, cavernous, dark, and it's significantly cooler inside, providing instant relief from the sun and wind. 

"We're close," Slit says, his voice echoing in the tunnels. "Maybe two hours away at most." 

In the distance, Furiosa hears a sound, an odd sound, that makes her think of when oil drips into the sand, but it's different. It's water; a part of her knows that, even though she's not too sure how. And it's an interesting sound, she decides, to hear water drop down into water, and then to hear it echo. 

But there's an odd sound, a mumbling, the echoes as well and she can't tell exactly where it's coming from though the voice is familiar. The voice sounds lost, confused, and she knows it well, has heard it shout out plenty of times while trapped in hallucinations and-- She blinks.

Max. 

It's Max and he's keening, mumbling to himself, whimpering with his ears flat against his head and eyes darting around, as if searching for danger. His breathing is shallow, quick and he's shaking. 

He blinks and blinks and blinks. His head's spinning and he feels sick. He feels like there are hands all over him, touching him, prodding him; they're holding him down. And a whine, not a growl-- he's too tired and too confused-- builds up in his throat. He can see them around him in the shadows, moving in, moving closer, and there's Jessie in the front and he won't snap, not at her. He doesn't have it in him, even with everything he's done, all the people he's let down, all the people he's killed, to snap at his Jessie.

So he whines and cries instead, a high desperate noise. 

Slit tries his best, he really does, to be comforting. He's worked with the Pups before, but not in a long while, and they're not exactly gentle with them, especially as they grow. He's had experience with nightmares before, though, so he awkwardly rocks Max and mumbles to him. 

"You're okay," he promises, though a large part of himself is angry for saying such soft things. "Max, you're okay. We're almost back and then we'll patch you up and you can eat and sleep some." 

Cheedo watches with her head tilted to the side and a confused facial expression, while Furiosa's gaze is a mixture of concern for Max and pain still radiating from her ribs. Nux continues to lead, occasionally pausing to sniff the sand. Every few minutes, he looks back to Max to check on his pack mate. 

Time drags on down in the tunnel, making each second feel like eternity and Furiosa is caught in memories of navigating them with her crew, particularly Ace. And she's hit with a deep pang of sadness when she remembers that days before the battle, Ace wasn't feeling well. They don't know how much longer he has, being so old already. But a large part of her fears he may have died while she was out in the desert trying to find her way back to the Citadel. 

She breaks the silence. "Did any of you talk to Ace before we left a couple days ago?"

Slit and Nux nod. Their eyes look abnormally wet, as if with tears. She doesn't comment on it; she doesn't want to make them uncomfortable or angry. She expects it, though. Ace is well-respected, almost a father, a real father, not a god-like figure like Joe, to the Boys and Pups. The only time she's seen Boys close to tears like this, aside from Ace-- he's very emotionally invested in the overall well-being of the group, especially his crew, and she's seen him cry, though she'll never tell-- is when Pups die. 

"How-- how was he?" 

"Sick," Nux answers, his voice unsteady and burdened with emotion. "He was coughin' a whole lot."

"All those tumors never got 'im before," Slit quietly adds. "They are now." 

She nods, her throat feeling too tight to speak. She'll visit him when they get back, she thinks. She'll divide her time between Max and Ace, making sure they're both well. 

Max, having been quiet for quite some time, starts keening again. His wounds are looking bad, oozy and wet; definitely not a good sign. 

"Hey!" a voice calls from further ahead. "Who're you?"

Slit and Nux's faces light up, and Slit's the one to answer, "Bolts! 's us! Slit an' Nux with The Feral, the Imperator, and Cheedo!"

"Also, The Feral's name is Max!" Nux adds. 

A Boy with a very crooked nose, probably from a long cycle of breaking and rebreaking it and setting it wrong, and a very obvious and large overbite runs up to them with a large and crooked grin. Hell, he doesn't even stand up straight; it seems that one of his legs is longer than the other, which makes him lopsided. 

"Does he need the Organic Mechanic?" Bolts asks, tilting his head to the side. 

Furiosa answers before anyone else can, remembering Max's experiences there as a blood bag and his current mental state. "No, he needs to be taken back into the Citadel. We'll treat him there." 

Bolts nods. "I can lead!" 

Bolts leads the way through the tunnels now and they pass more and more Boys and a few Pups. Bolts stops for a second to scoop up a young Pup named Fang, and then continues on his way. Fang watches them, peering over Bolts' shoulder with wide eyes full to the brim with curiosity. 

"Why'd you have a--" Fang looks at Max. "What's it?"

"He's a dingo," Furiosa answers. "And he's a friend. He got hurt defending the Citadel." 

Fangs nods, and then points to Nux. "That dingo has Nuts' voice. Why?" 

"Nuts?" Cheedo asks, stifling a laugh. 

"Yeah, Nuts."

Furiosa smiles. "That's because it is Nux," she answers. "Um, this happens sometimes that people can be dingoes too."

Fang frowns, considering that for a second, and then he's smiling and asking questions again. "Is the other dingo a person too?" 

"Yes, and his name is Max."

"Oooh. He's the feral one, right?"

Furiosa nods. "That's him." 

"Why's he a dingo and a person?" Fang asks. 

She chuckles to herself, amused at how curious the Pups are still. Kids will be kids, she supposes. "I don't know. It just happens sometimes, I think."

"Really?" 

"Really."

Bolts hums, and then sets Fang, who pouts and swigs his arms, back on the ground before turning to face the group with a grin the pulls up at one side of his face much more than the other. "We're here!"

Furiosa has never been more glad to enter the Citadel in her life. It's cooler in there, much cooler, than outside and in the Boys' quarters where the heat of the furnace and various engines are always present. As she revels in the cool, Max cries out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About Ace: if you remember that weredingo blood has a healing factor, you're on to something....


	9. Chapter 9

Bolts grunts as he pushes open a large door and Fang places his hands on it to help, also grunting. When it's open, the Pup sighs and leans against the open door. Cheedo bends down to hug him and thank him for opening the big, heavy door for them.

Bolts rubs Fang's head. "Yeah, he's real strong, ain't he?"

Before Cheedo can respond, she's interrupted.

"Nux!"

"Capable!"

Capable runs up to them, stops when she sees it was a dingo who answered her call, exchanges a look with Furiosa, who shrugs. Bolts awkwardly smiles and picks Fang back up, while Slit loudly sighs.

"This is sweet an' all, but Max needs medical attention," Slit says.

"Follow me," Cheedo calls over her shoulder, already on her way to one of the vacant rooms.

Slit quickly follows, while Max keens. Now in better lightning, he can get a better look at his wounds and can see they're worse than he originally thought, especially a nasty cut on his side that still looks wet. He can also see wounds on everyone else; Cheedo has cuts on her forehead and forearms, Nux is limping, Furiosa is still walking cautiously to avoid jostling her injured ribs.

"Furiosa needs her ribs checked," Nux adds.

Slit deposits Max on a bed in one of the many empty rooms in the higher levels of the Citadel, and Furiosa sits next to him, gently prodding at that particularly ugly side wound, while Max whines. Nux hops up onto the bed and curls up around his pack mate.

Upon entering the room, Cheedo sighs and runs a hand through her hair. The Vuvalini behind her laughs, grabbing everyone's attention and attracting all eyes in the room, except Max's; he's far off, staring at the wall and trembling. The Vuvalini-- she introduces herself simply as Healer, as if it's her name and not just her title-- surveys the group and moves towards Furiosa first.

"No, no." Furiosa shakes her head. "Check him--" She points to Max. "--first, please."

Capable crouches next to Nux so they're at the same level and runs a hand through his fur. Nux quietly sighs and leans into her touch, wagging his tail. Max was right, he thinks, being pet feels _really_ nice, especially scratches under the chin; those are the best.

Furiosa leans against the wall, watches Healer handle Max, who doesn't put up any sort of fight. In fact, he's limp and complete compliant to all of Healer's touches and prodding and cleaning and stitching. She attacks his smaller cuts first, and then moves to the more concerning one on his side with a frown.

"Why," Healer asks as she cleans the oozy wound, "would you want me to tend to him first?"

Furiosa doesn't notice the tone of Healer's voice, her light smile. "Max is-- he's hurt bad, I think. I've seen him worse, but there's only so much someone can take and-- this can't be it."

Healer nods. "Hmm. I meant that you have a certain look in your eyes."

Furiosa blinks, looks confused. "Excuse me?"

"You like him a lot," Healer continues. "Why a dingo, I don't know--"

"He's a weredingo," Furiosa clarifies. "He's not always like this."

Healer laughs. "You're very fond of him."

Furiosa wants to argue despite the fact she is very fond of him, they share a bed, and-- She's more than very fond of him, but she won't give anyone he satisfaction of knowing she'd use a word much much stronger than fondness to describe it, so she gives in and says, "I guess I am."

Healer hums, and then moves from Max to her. "Your ribs, are they hurt?"

Before Furiosa can answer, she's pressing on her side, rubbing her hands up and down, feeling around, and she winces. Quickly, she nods and suppresses the urge to push the other woman off her, to fight her. And she understands Max's aversion to medical attention just then, how it's hard to define helping from hurting; she imagines it would be harder for him to distinguish between the two than for her, given his quick reaction time and overall mental state.

"Broken," Healer says with a quick nod. "You've broken two ribs. The rest are just bruised."

Furiosa nods. "Alright. I've had worse."

"That's the spirit!"

"What about Max?"

Healer moves back over to Max, points to his wounds as she talks. "We need to watch him for infections. I'm not liking the look of his skin around this--" She points to the worst of the cuts on his side. "--wound. This would be easier if he were in a human form, but I've heard they heal faster like this."

"The healing factor's still present as humans. Nux and I took blood from him as a human and we both have it."

Healer shrugs. "Weredingo biology is new to me."

* * *

 

Furiosa can't sleep that night due to a combination of worry over Max and Ace, and an odd thrumming feeling deep in her bones accompanied by a deep desire to _move._  She's been restless before, of course, but this is different, much more urgent. And there's a pain shooting throughout her entire body, though not originating in her broken and bruised ribs; it feels deeper than that.

She paces to ward it off, pulls at the sleeves of her shirt, wrings out her hands, shakes. But it's not enough, so she heads for the makeshift infirmary, stopping to visit Ace first.

She finds him in a quiet room, too quiet. He's a loud man; she associates him with engines and tools and the clanking of metals. He's not meant to be so quiet. The only sound is his breathing, loud rasps, and the occasional gasp.

There's a weak, "Hey, Boss" from under the blanket.

Slowly, she sits on the edge of the bed and gently places a hand-- her skin-and-bone hand-- on his arm. "Hey, Ace." It comes out more tearfully than she means. "How're you feeling?"

"Been better," he answers.

She moves her hand to his forehead, feels he's burning up. She's seen it before in many of their crew mates. The night fevers are always present, always a step in a War Boy's death from disease. She just never thought Ace would die anywhere except in a battle or on a raid.

"I'll be--" He's cut off by a coughing fit. "--I'll be alright, Boss."

She nods, sniffling. "Yeah, you're too stubborn to die."

He laughs, but it dissolves to coughing. "Hell right. Yer not gettin' rid of me."

"I could never get rid of you."

He smiles and it's crooked, weak, but the light in his eyes is still strong.

"What if I told you I might know a way to help you?" She moves her hand down from his forehead and squeezes one of his hands.

"I'm all ears, Boss."

She takes a deep breath to steady herself. "Weredingoes--"

"Those ain't real, Boss."

"--have a healing factor in their blood if you drink it. I happen to know at least two weredingoes. One gave me his blood once. He's hurt now-- it's bad-- but when he's better--"

"Boss."

"--we could ask him. Please, Ace." She grips his hand. "Let's give it a try."

"Alright, alright. When your weredingo friend's better and if I'm still 'round, we can try."

She nods. "Thanks."

"Hm?"

"For everything. Thanks, Ace. Best crew mate I could ask for."

"Nah, you're gettin' us confused again."

* * *

 

The early hours before the sun rises are spent pacing the halls as the desire to move only grows and grows, and there's an odd pain, a tightness, in her jaw and limbs. She feels misaligned, like she's not sure what she's supposed to be, but it sure as hell isn't herself. Pressure builds and she's boiling over.

Suddenly and forcefully, she strikes the walls with her hands, and then runs up onto the roofs. She sits down and sighs, taking deep breaths and looks up at the moon and hopes. She hopes Angarhad is alright, wherever she is, whatever the afterlife entails; she hopes Ace makes it through the night; she hopes Toast and Cheedo and Dag and Capable sleep well; she hopes Nux and Slit are well; she hopes the Boys and Pups aren't too torn up over Ace not being well; most of all, she hopes Max makes it.

She's shaking and she resists to urge to cry out and scream and, strangely enough, to howl.

She remembers nights like these: cool nights when the air is still and the moon is bright enough to illuminate the sands with silvery light. These are the nights Max would run with the most energy despite his hurt leg and howl the loudest despite the fact there was-- now there's Nux-- no one to answer him.

Her vision blurs and she falls to her side.

Minutes later, her vision returns, but she feels weird, feels different. But it's not a bad different. She feels realigned. Still boiling over with energy and the urge to run and howl, but better.

She looks down and pauses, eyes wide.

Paws.

She has paws.

 _Oh, no no no_. She knows what this means, knows from Nux. She took Max's blood too and it's different from drinking it like she knows Joe did, like she's hopes Ace will. It's in her bloodstream, in Nux's bloodstream.

She hops up onto her paws, all three of them, and scampers through the halls, running past confused Boys and Pups, to Max in the infirmary.

He's curled up in bed, still in the form of a dingo, and she's overwhelmed with all the smells, but mostly the reek of infection. Cautiously, she hops up next to him and curls up.

He cracks open an eye and whines. "Furiosa?"

"How did you know it's me?"

He hums. He's too warm, she can feel it. "You smell nice."

She snorts. "Look at you. Ever the charmer."

He quietly laughs. She can't hear it, but she can feel it from where their sides touch.

He moves so his head rests on her front paw, so she rests her head on top of his and cleans his ears. She's not sure why she does that, but it feels right.

"You're filthy," she comments. "When's the last time you were cleaned?"

"'s kinda hard to clean my own ears," he mumbles.

There's something on her paw, something wet. And she pauses because Jesus Christ what the hell is that? She looks down to see Max licking her paw. He's also wagging his tail. Cleaning. He's cleaning her.

"Ribs?" Max asks, eloquent as always. "Hurt?"

"Two broken," she answers. "They're not too bad."

"Had worse?"

She nods. "I've had way worse."

They're interrupted by a click-click-click from the hallway. Someone's coming, another dingo; she's not too sure who, but she's sure they're coming. And they smell like motor oil and smoke, but it's not unpleasant.

"Nux," Max says. "It's him."

Almost as if on cue, Nux sticks his head in the room. One of his ears is floppy and the other stands up.

Wordlessly, Nux plods over and hops up onto the bed as well, making it extremely crowded. He too starts to clean Max, paying particular attention to his muzzle, while Furiosa takes care of his head. Max tries to return the favor, attempting to clean both of them, but he's too tired and gives up. He lies on his side instead and gives in to the dual cleaning.

Eventually, Max's eyes slide shut and Nux smiles. Furiosa finds herself smiling too.

* * *

 

When Healer and Cheedo check on Max in the morning, they're witness to the sight of three happy and sleepy dingoes piled on a small bed with tired eyes and wagging tails and tongues lolling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the gap between chapters. My grandma, aunt, and cousins came to visit so I had no writing time.
> 
> So there will be one more chapter. When I started, I aimed for about 10 chapters and it looks like it'll be 10.
> 
> When this is over, I'll be starting another Mad Max fic, so keep an eye open for that. Thanks for sticking around, guys. We're almost done.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place a couple months after the end of chapter 9.

Furiosa doesn't want to move, doesn't want to get out of bed, when it's so warm and comfortable. She's awake, has been for hours, but Max, now fully recovered though he has a nasty scar on his side, still sleeps next to her and she doesn't want to disturb him. He's gotten better, much better, at sleeping through the night. Nightmares are still commonplace, but they're no longer the kind that leave him awake and screaming, unsure of who he is or where he is.

He looks younger, less ragged and unsure in his sleep, and she watches him for a while, feeling him breathe. He mumbles a little, quiet words she can barely hear, but she can see his lips moving. The corner of his mouth twitches, and then he's smiling.

She smiles back even though he can't see it, even though the smile's for whatever he's dreaming about and not her. She's wonders what it is, what can make him smile like that because it's brilliant. He really does have a nice smile, a little awkward and lopsided, but it fits him.

Slowly, he opens his eyes and stretches, moaning a little as pain radiates from his bad knee. She reaches down and massages his thigh, knowing that can help lessen the tightness in his knee sometimes.

"So," she begins. "What's got you in a good mood?"

He snorts. "Always in a good mood."

"Not in the morning, you're not." She elbows him. "Come on. Tell me."

"Dag told me the fruit should be ready to harvest today," he answers. "Specifically the little red ones. My favorite."

She hums. "Just don't eat so much so quickly and make yourself sick off them like you did last time."

"What?" he asks, sitting up with his hands on his hips. "I never did anything like that."

"Your first month here, you got sick after almost every dinner because you ate too much too fast."

* * *

After their breakfast, which they eat a little after everyone else since they slept in, Max and Furiosa make their way up to Dag's roof to help harvest the fruit, or in Max's case, eat it all. It's a miracle, really, he hasn't been banned from "helping" in the gardens, especially with Angharad since the two of them hardly harvest anything and eat it instead.

As they climb the stairs and pass a window, Max looks to her and pauses, suddenly unable to move. Not in the physical sense, though he's not a stranger to being trapped, cornered, restrained, or in too much pain to move. It's the kind of paralysis he feels early in the mornings on the road when seeing the orange sunrise stain the entire horizon a brilliant bright color, the kind people used to try to paint when that was a luxury people could afford but never achieve, or when the stars are so bright and visible and litter the sky sometimes so thickly he can't tell where one star ends and the next begins, creating a glowing white blanket in the sky.

She's standing in the sun and looking right at him and the light's hitting her so well, and he suddenly wishes he ever could paint, that people still did that, that he could paint this. He wishes he had a-- it takes him a while to remember the name of the device used to take pictures-- camera because he'd take a picture now and frame it.

She's standing in the sun and looking right at him with a frown on her face. "Max? Are you feeling sick?"

He blinks, makes a face. "Hm?"

"Max?" she asks again.

He rubs at his face. "Just thinking. I'm good."

She grabs his hands and leads the way up to the roof as he's trapped in thoughts about painting and other archaic practices.

"Hey, Boss," Ace, greatly aided by the blood Max gave him even though everyone warned Max he was in no condition to be bleeding himself to help others again, greets. "Hey, Max."

"Dag roped you into helping too?" Furiosa asks, barely concealing a grin.

Ace nods. "Said there's a lot to harvest. Who am I to say no?"

"You mean you don't want to look like a jerk."

"That too."

Angharad pulls on Max's sleeve, and then holds up both her arms. She's missing her front teeth and it stills hurts for him to look at her, but it's gotten better. He scoops her up and places her up on his shoulders, and she giggles at how high off the ground she is.

Fang, also recruited by Dag, whines and reaches towards Bolts, who scoops the Pup up and puts him up on his shoulders too.

"Ready?" Angharad asks.

Max nods. "'m always ready," he answers.

"We're gonna get the most berries!" She swings her legs. "Right?"

"Right."

"And we're gonna eat a lot of 'em but not like last time 'cause we got tummy aches and that wasn't fun," she adds with a very serious air for a toddler.

He nods, trying to be as serious as possible. "Sounds like a plan. I'm in."

"See?" Capable whispers to Furiosa. "He's good with kids."

Furiosa rolls her eyes and walks off to talk to Cheedo, but wears a small smile. Capable crosses her arms across her chest and snorts, shaking her head in disbelief.

"How're we looking?" Furiosa asks.

"Good," Cheedo answers. "Trade's going well. No future conflicts as far as I can see." She pauses. "I'm keeping an eye on something today, though."

"What? Is it dangerous?"

She cracks a grin. "To our fruit supply, yes."

Furiosa laughs. "You're on Max watching duty again?"

"Hey, your fool is a threat to our fruit supply. Remember last time he helped harvest?"

"I remember. I'm the one who was stuck with him while he complained about a stomachache." She shakes her head. "He won't eat any this time, I promise."

"Hey, Max!" Cheedo calls.

Max, still with Angharad on his shoulders, turns to face them. He's standing by a bush and gripping a basket in his hands, but it's surprisingly empty for how long he's been by the bush. His and Angharad's hands are red and it's around their mouths too.

"Yes?" he asks.

"Okay, okay. I promise he won't eat as much as he did last time," Furiosa corrects.

Max looks confused as he watches Cheedo and Furiosa laugh. 

* * *

Hours later, as the sun sets, the group of them-- Dag, Angharad, Cheedo, Toast, Ace, Bolts, Fang, Slit, Nux, Capable, Furiosa, and Max-- are lying and sitting on blankets with baskets of various fruits ranging from apples to berries off to the side. The majority of them watch the sunset with lazy, tired, but happy grins. 

Max lies on his side next to Furiosa, quietly groaning. 

"I have a stomachache," he grumbles. 

He looks so sad, so pathetic, on the ground with his eyes closed, and his face and hands covered in sticky juice from all the berries he ate. 

"I'm not surprised," she replies. "You ate a lot of berries. Again. You did it again."

He groans. "Don't make fun of me." 

"I love you, but you're a menace and you did this to yourself." 

Angharad sighs and flops down next to Max. "I have a tummy ache." 

"Aw." Furiosa lowers her head and kisses Angharad's forehead. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." 

"What? I don't get a forehead kiss?" Max asks.

Furiosa is proud of him; this is a lot of talking and interacting for one day. But that doesn't change her answer. "No, because you did this to yourself."

"So did she!" he whines. 

"She's also a toddler and you're an adult man."

Max lightly kicks her side.  "You're so mean to me."

"Shhh. I'm trying to watch the sunset."

"Don't need your ears to watch the sunset, love." 

She smiles anyway, despite the fact she's mock angry at him. "Shut up."

* * *

That night's beautiful; a large full moon that lights up the entire sky and makes the sands glow white hangs above them and the stars are almost blinding. 

And three dingos dash across a sand dune, howling to each other, their bloodstreams flooded with adrenaline, and large grins on their faces. 

A pack.

Max is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While this fic is over, I can't promise I'm done with weredingo Max. If the mood strikes, which it probably will, expect some one-shots.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, everyone! This was really fun to write even though I moved in the middle of writing and had a sudden visit from relatives to deal with. Thanks so much for all the kudos and comments and positive reviews. It really means a lot. Fanfic authors don't really get a lot of comments or visibility, not like artists do, so everything means a lot. Thank you.
> 
> I know I mentioned I'm writing another Mad Max fic. Please keep an eye out for Mad Max: Road to the Stanley Cup, a hockey AU!

**Author's Note:**

> I'll update when I can, but I'm moving at the end of the month. I'll try to get as much up as I can before that, but please bare with me and thanks for reading! Please don't be afraid to leave comments, kudos, etc. Thanks again!


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